I thought 2010 went by fast, but to say that 2011 went by faster would be an understatement. A lot happened this year too, and since OCCUPY was the biggest word in the world events, our world was occupied by several ongoing things.
We continued reconnecting and connecting with friends and colleagues, thanks to the social media sites. It is hard to believe that the world has shrunk so much. One can literally see the person on the other side, and not just talk to them anymore. I am guessing holographic communication must be just around the corner.
People we lost in 2011
Nandita bid her final good byes to her mother, who succumbed to old age. Aai, who was nearly 86 years old, was a very remarkable lady indeed and led a full life. We had the fortune of having her spend 6 months with us in 2001 in the US, and she wrote a few pages about herself. I am using those to prepare a write up about her life, which I think is worth making into an inspirational movie.
I lost my very dear friend, Jayesh, who was my childhood buddy. I wrote about it in my previous blog (read about it here).
And of course, though I never met him, I felt sorry to see Steve Job go. Not my idol, but someone I admired for what he had achieved, and for what he sought to achieve. A remarkable man, and a remarkable visionary. If only every entrepreneur was like him (and that could never happen)!
Other noted Indian Celebrities that were lost this year include noted Gazal Singer Jagjeet Singh, Bhupen Hazarika, and the evergreen actor Dev Anand. Each of these made tremendous contribution to the Indian Entertainment world.
Major events in 2011 that made headlines, and caught my attention:
- Killing of Osama Bin Laden by Navy Seals
- Killing of M. Gaddafi of Libya by a mob
- Occupy movement made headlines all over the world.
- Bank Of America issued plans to charge a fees and then withdrew it
- Arab Spring
- Earthquake and the Tsunami that followed it cause severe damage in Japan
- Scientists claim discovery of God Particle.
- Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman decide to stand united for the US President Elections (ok, I made this one up as a joke).
The Kids
We only need to look at our daughters to realize that time really does fly. Shivangi turned 20 years old while Neha turned 19. Wow!! 20 and 19!! Has it already been that long since I held them in my hands outside the OR’s in the hospitals in Indore?
Shivangi is now a senior at Mills College, as part of her three year dual degree program. She completes her BA in Math from Mills in 2012 and will go to USC, to complete her Industrial Engineering in another 2 years. It is such a pleasure to see her talk to people now. She likes to sit with elders and can easily hold her own in a discussion. She and I flew in to LA to visit USC, and it was a great fun trip for both of us. She has continued to be very actively involved in the local chapter of the Hindu Group (called as shakha), and is now the district coordinator (Nagar Bal Pramukh Karyavahika) for the Chapters of Contra Costa County. She also drove on her own to LA and later to San Luis Obispo, as well as to Davis and Sacramento.
Neha, turned 19 on the last day of the year. She is now a sophomore in St. Mary’s college. She will major in Bio-chemistry, and is thinking about a career in medicine, genetics or pharmacology. She also continues to be involved in the local Hindu chapter and helps in running its daily activities. She moved back home from the dorm this year, and has been commuting from home. She has started opening up in her conversations and it is a pleasure to talk to her, with her detailed insight into several subjects. She continues to be the techie of the family, and loves new gadgets. Often, she can be seen helping Nandita and Shivangi (and sometime even me) with something on our phones.
Nandita and I
Nandita and I turned into the other side of 40s. We have been married for 24 years now, and have known each other a lot longer (since 1981 -- you can read about that here). It still feels like it was only yesterday that I met her and I am just happy that we have been lucky. I’d do it again in a flash, if I had to.
Our new home, where we moved in last year in Aug has had a lot of visitors. We had friends and family visit us this year. Sinhas (Mahesh, Rani and Ameya) visited us in the summers. Sharmila Dey and her husband, Dr. Alvin Sewell spent a few days with us. Rucha, Nandita’s niece, spent her winter break with us (she is doing her masters in Arizona). Also visiting us this year were our very good friends, Alica and Jeff Sandoval, with their daughter Gabby; as well as another of Nandita’s nephew Abhijit with his family. We consider ourselves very fortunate that we have been blessed with friends and family, who feel comfortable spending time with us and consider it our honor to open up our homes to them.
Our jobs
I have continued to work at the Bank Of America in the eCommerce team as a Sr. VP and am responsible for the delivery of projects. Just the other day I was looking at the work done by my team, and the numbers were mindboggling. One of my teams is the Small Projects team – and it had close to 80,000 hours of work this year with zero defects in production. Of the 65 applications that I own, many are changing the architecture to the new state of the art technology. The three initiative teams did a fabulous job again this year (over 150K hours of work), and barring for one project that stumbled due to multiple failures, everything went like well oiled machine. I am in the process of implementing some more changes that will hopefully make things even smoother and introduce the concept of agile development to the Bank.
Nandita has continued to work as a Director in the Clinical and Technical Affairs at Coagusense. The small startup company, based in Fremont company’s product was approved by FDA and the future looks bright as orders have started coming in. I had the pleasure of meeting her CEO, and they seem to be moving in the right direction.
I also helped a neighbor and close friend with a project that he was stuck on for nearly 5 years. JP, my friend, is a graduate from IIT Delhi and IIM, Ahmadabad. It turned out that his Mother on law, and my mother were childhood friends and neighbors in Roorkee, India. Anyway, he had been working on a great product but somehow got stuck in the long-winded process. I promised to help him get the Proof of concept completed, and he is now working with investors to get the product launched. See http://redbaton.net for more details, if you are interested.
The travels
I traveled to Charlotte, NC (about 6 times) on business trips. Nandita and I traveled to Boston this year, and Shivangi traveled with me to Los Angeles.
Nandita traveled to Chicago, Iowa, Michigan, Nashville, Jackson (TN), Tupelo (birthplace of Elvis in Mississippi), Vancouver (WA), Eugene (OR), Idaho, Baton Rouge (LA). Her trips are shorter and more for trials or training of a new customer.
Nandita, Shivangi and Neha also traveled with Rucha, Nandita’s niece, for a trip of Los Angeles. They visited a lot of cool spots there.
Nandita also traveled to India to attend the last rites of her mother.
Activities
The geek in me continues to strive to learn things on my own. This year, I sought to learn a few techie things like Jooma, Drupal, wanted to write a basic app in Android and iOS. I was able to complete all these, though I wish I had more time to try out a few more things in each one. I also bought a Casio CK220 keyboard and want to record some old Hindi tunes. On top of my to-do list is to play/record/share a few of my old high school prayers. I am also hoping to get to become a decent Ukulele player, and I really want to get my hands on a sitar again.
I have also been very active as the coordinator for the Contra Costa Chapter of Global Indian Technology Professionals (GITPRO). The organization is still nascent, but already has chapters all over the world. We had 10 monthly events this year in our chapter that covered various topics like preparing for an interview, planning your career, Financial and Tax Management, Cloud Technology, Innovation, and Legal aspects of starting your own Venture etc. There is a lot more planned for this in 2012. Check it out here.
We all contributed time towards the Sewa project. That is the least we can do to contribute towards the society and community here in the US. If you are not aware, the Sewa project feeds the homeless in the People’s park every third Saturday. Volunteers from the San Ramon Hindu Shakha gather together to prepare lunch packets, that are then hand delivered to the homeless that reside in people’s park. This year, we contributed towards this at the time of my dad’s birthday/death anniversary.
Nandita continues to be involved with her writer’s club. The ladies in this club meet once a month on a Friday evening at someone’s home and read the write-ups that they have prepared. I will be posting some of these on her blog soon. She is also actively involved in the Bay Area Hindu Group, and after handling the role of Women’s Lead, she is now the Chairwoman of the local San Ramon chapter. She manages all these activities along with her job as a Director of Clinical and Technical Affairs in a medical device company. She makes effort to stay connected with her High School friends with whom she has connected after nearly 30 years and is panning a reunion for those living in US in 2012.
This year I had also initiated a plan to have a reunion of sorts of my batch-mates from my Engineering college days. We had all planned to meet in Pune, India this year in December. Unfortunately; I had to drop out at the last minute due to some personal issues. However, other people (Samir Mokashi, Monica Baser Tapadia, and Varsha Karandikar deserve special mention) stepped up to the plate, picked up the ball and planned a great event. I saw the snaps recently, and it looked like everyone that attended had a lot of fun.
On the family side, my mother is doing fine in Indore. A recent CT scan revealed that she has a grown node in her chest and some more tests are being done to identify the nature of the growth A fine needle biopsy is planned for the first week of January, and will help plan the details of the next plan of action. I am praying that nothing abnormal is detected and she continues to lead her active life style.
TV shows and Movies we saw
- Some mentionable English movies we saw – Mission Impossible 4 – Ghost protocol, Sherlock Holmes 2 – the game of Shadows, The girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the original series – all 3 movies), Captain America, Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows 2, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Green Hornet, The Social Network.
- Hindi Movies –some old Hindi movies that we saw (and recommend) – Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Dhobhi Ghaat, Guzaarish
- TV Serials we followed – House MD, Covert Affairs, Rizzolli and Isles, Bones, NCIS, Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, Person Of Interest, and Necessary Roughness.
Events we celebrated – India’s world Cup Cricket Victory.
Some good Books we read
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl that Kicked the hornet’s nest, The girl who played with Fire, A few of Patricia Cornwell’s, Saving Fish from Drowning, and Many more.
